Indigenous Taste

Abstract

For the Indigenous Sagada Igorots of upland Cordillera in northern Philippines, domesticated pigs and etag (salted and smoked pork slices) continue to play an important role for rituals and as gastronomic vehicles for constituting and performing social relatedness, reciprocity, and redistributive functions through feasting and sharing. These deep historical practices are largely mediated by the elders of Sagada in the face of various kinds of entanglements with the state and markets over time. I characterize this mixed bundle of communal socio-affective and gastronomic ingredients as “Indigenous taste.” This essay discusses recent substantive socioeconomic changes in Sagada due largely to mass tourism and the impacts they have set in motion for the aforementioned practices, and on how Sagada Igorots negotiate with the outside world under these new historical conditions.